Letter: Tahoe Fund making basin a better place

To the community,

In 2010, amidst a backdrop of discord in the Tahoe basin, a group of people who love Tahoe came together to start the Tahoe Fund. As leaders in conservation, business and community, our interests were diverse, but all agreed we could do better for Tahoe. There was a lot of pent up energy to do tangible projects that would protect the environment, improve recreation and increase environmental stewardship.

Not wanting to reinvent the wheel, we decided the best way to do that would be to support the already existing environmental improvement program (EIP), a collaborative interagency effort to identify priority projects which was a result of the first Lake Tahoe Environmental Summit. In our first few years, we have raised funds for more than a dozen projects to expand the network of bike trails, fight invasive species, and restore important watersheds. Projects include the Van Sickle Bi-State Park, removal of Asian clams from Emerald Bay, restoration of Blackwood Creek, and a new bike path from Incline Village to Sand Harbor. A full list of our projects can be found online.

I would like to thank the visionary Tahoe Fund supporters who make these projects possible. With your help we can increase our impact and leave a legacy for generations to come.

Cory Ritchie, Tahoe Fund board member